


'Til The End Of The (Time)Line

by innogueira



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Endgame, Endgame fix it, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), fixing /that/ scene, the stucky ending we deserved, this was fuelled purely by straight up anger at the russo brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 19:59:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18611476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innogueira/pseuds/innogueira
Summary: “So…” Bucky started after a few silent moments, both of them keeping their eyes trained on the soft waves crashing in front of them. “You’re back.” he stated.Steve nodded slightly, a sad smile tugging at the corner of his lips, before turning his head to look at Bucky, “Couldn’t stay there. Couldn’t leave my best guy behind.”Steve completes his mission. He finally comes to terms that the past is gone, and that forward is the only way to go.





	'Til The End Of The (Time)Line

**Author's Note:**

> I'm angry and upset so I made this. Spoilers ahead, obviously, and most likely a bunch of typos.

The shield on Sam's arm looked… fitting.

Bucky had only ever seen it in Steve's hands and while he hated every second of it, of what it meant, Steve did good with it. He brought them back.

Sam was a worthy successor. The rightful one.

Steve didn't even need to ask Bucky if he wanted it. He knew the answer, knew how the last thing Bucky wanted to do right now was taking another man's mantel when he had barely started figuring out who he even was as a person. He didn't want to be Captain America. Steve's footsteps weren’t a bad path to follow, but Bucky was enjoying the road he was walking on. It was his own, and after the life he had, he figured he owed himself that. Steve understood it as well.

“You seeing this, Grease Lightning? Don't I look good in red, white, and blue?” Sam teased him from the riverfront. The grin was playful, but it was easy to see how touched he was by what Steve had done.

Still, Bucky couldn't help but roll his eyes, though the smile on his lips was starting to come more easily. “Yeah, brings out your eyes.”

Sam swung the shield with his arm, the vibranium swishing in the soft wind. “You're jealous because I got a new toy.”

“Can't wait to see you figuring out that thing. You know, first time I actually used it in battle, I was blasted out a moving train.” Bucky raised a defiant brow towards Sam, and it was clearly a joke, but Steve's jaw clenched. He had just been laughing at Sam, his profile turned to Bucky from where he was sitting on the bench, and now there was a tension to his brow that wasn't there.

Bucky was still getting used to his new found dark sense of humour. It didn't work that well outside a theatre of war.

As much as he and Sam enjoyed bickering, Sam was always the level headed one who knew when to cut it short, and Steve’s sudden energy change was enough for him to put an end to that conversation. “And your dumbass is still standing. I'll be fine.” Sam took a few steps closer to Buck, shaking his head at him and lightly pushing him aside with the shield.

Stuffing his hands on the pockets of his bomber jacket, hiding the fact that he was fidgeting, Bucky saw Sam walk a few steps away before turning to Steve again. He had turned back to look at the lake, making the sunlight hit his hair perfectly, creating a soft halo around his head. It reminded Bucky of days not too long ago in Wakanda, so he went and sat next to Steve.

Steve ran hot all his life, the slightest thing setting a fire under him, but it was only after the serum that his body caught up with his mind. It was comforting, knowing he didn’t have to worry about him freezing to death in the middle of the night. His warm presence next to Bucky had been an anchor for the past few months as well, making it easier to navigate this new world.

“So…” Bucky started after a few silent moments, both of them keeping their eyes trained on the soft waves crashing in front of them. “You’re back.” he stated.

Steve nodded slightly, a sad smile tugging at the corner of his lips, before turning his head to look at Bucky, “Couldn’t stay there. Couldn’t leave my best guy behind.”

Shaking his head, Bucky took his hands out of his pockets, wringing his hands together, metal and flesh. Two days ago Steve told him he had to take the Stones back to their rightful time, that it was the last thing they needed to do to make things right. He also told him how seeing Peggy again made old feelings he thought were dealt with bubble back to the surface. It wasn’t hard to piece together what he was trying to say.

Bucky wasn’t expecting him to come back, specially looking not even a week older than he was when he left two minutes ago. It was not what Steve had told him. It was not what Bucky had prepared for.

He was thankful he came back the way he did.

“What changed?” Bucky asked, glancing over at Steve, trying to read his expression. Steve was.. stubborn. Once he set his mind on it, it was hard to change it, so Bucky was trying to wrap his head around this sudden change in plans.

Steve sighed deeply, clearly getting ready to tell Bucky what he knew was going to be an epic tale. It had to be, one doesn’t jump through time and space carrying a briefcase with the six most powerful things in the universe and comes back with a boring story. “The Red Skull’s guarding the Soul Stone, you know? On a menacing cliff, like a goddamn martyr” he sneered, shaking his head, while Bucky listened patiently. “I tried to bargain for Nat. A soul for a soul, we didn’t need the Stone anymore… You know what he said?”

Bucky shook his head softly, angling his body towards Steve, trying to comfort him. It’s been 5 years, he’s trying to figure out this Steve that has been through so much over the past five years Bucky, and the rest of the world, wasn’t there. It’s going to take a moment to fall back in pace.

“You can’t undo what has been done. You can’t change your past.” Steve gritted his teeth. Bucky couldn’t imagine how hard that hit must have been for him. “I was so pissed, I got Mjolnir and before I could finally kill that sonuvabitch, he transported me to where I had materialized from. Just like that.” he waved with his hand, before running it through his hair.

Bucky lowered his gaze. He remembered Natasha. Little spitfire of a young lady in her Red Room days. Bucky wasn’t proud of what he did in the past, but knowing he had some impact on the life of someone who ended up saving the universe, it made him not hate every second of it.  “I’m sorry you couldn’t get her back.”

Steve smiled bitterly, resting his closed fist on his thigh. “So am I…” he shook his head, recollecting himself before continuing, “But I kept going. Asgard, New York… I got all the Stones back and there wasn’t anything else for me to do. So I went to 1945. Like I told you.”

“Did you see her?” Bucky couldn’t help but ask, holding his breath for the answer. How could Steve see Peggy and decide that wasn’t what he wanted anymore? What had happened?

Steve nodded, a dreamy little smile on his lips. The one he got when he spoke about Peggy, one Bucky saw as soon as he got out from Azzano. “She went to the Stork club. Actually waited for a miracle. Looked at me like I really was one, but I think she knew something was wrong. I mean, how could I have survived that? How did I get out of an iceberg and showed up in New York a few days later?”

“Why did you look at least ten years older?” Bucky cut in with a little chuckle, but he could feel his heart on his throat.

It made Steve laugh, he corner of his eyes wrinkling. A lifetime had gone past since those days, but his looks barely aged. There were new wrinkles on his forehead, maybe a white hair, but put him in a green uniform and he looked like he never left the 40’s. His eyes, though. Those aged, seen too much for him to look as young as he had been back then. Bucky was sure Peggy saw those. She saw right through Bucky when he was rescued from Azzano and she had never seen him before.

The trip down memory lane had Bucky spacing out for a few moments, catching Steve in the middle of his explanation “-we danced the entire night. Then we stood there and I-”

“She sent your ass back.” Bucky interrupted, the corner of his lip quirking up. He had known Peggy Carter for long enough to know that would be what she’d do as soon as she figured out Steve didn’t come from a ice block in the Arctic. She was even more stubborn than Steve when it came to do the right thing. Of course she sent him back.

Steve laughed, light and amused, “Of course she did. I blurted out that I wasn’t really Steve and she hit me upside the head. But I couldn’t come back, not right then.” he shrugged. “I gave them the coordinates Fury found me in, which ended up being pretty accurate for 1945, only a few miles off. Let me tell you, seeing them thaw me was a whole experience.”

“How did you take seeing yourself? I mean, popsicle you.” Bucky bumped their shoulders together, a playful grin on his lips. He would have enjoyed seeing that interaction.

“How do you think? I was ready to fight myself.”

Bucky shook his head fondly, “Sounds like something you’d do.”

Steve chuckled, amused by the situation “Yeah, it does.” then his face falls and he looks up at Bucky. “I told him about you. Not about the future, just that you were alive and they got you. Helped him save you.”

“How… How bad was I?” Bucky manages to get words out. He always wondered, how it would have been like. To never be caught by Zola, to never get broken down to a shell of a man. To have been able to come back, to see his family and grow old.

Steve read him like a book, giving him a soft smile and patting his forearm for a moment. He knew Bucky didn’t need the details. “Hurt. But still there.”

“Thank you.” Bucky said, reaching to wrap his arms around Steve, hugging him tightly against his chest. He didn’t know why hearing about an alternate him made him so happy, but he really was. He was glad another James Barnes never got to experience the horrors that he did. That he got the life Bucky hoped he’d be able to go back to after the war.

He didn’t, but a Bucky Barnes out there did. All because of Steve. Saving him even in another timeline.

Steve returned the hug, but quickly moved back. “You don’t have to thank me. I didn’t save you here.” he shook his head, and Bucky wanted to hit him. He hated the fact that Steve was never going to forgive himself for what Bucky went through. As if it hadn’t been Bucky’s choice to follow him into a snowy mountain, as if Steve hadn’t been frozen in the deep Arctic for seven decades. “Figured it was only fair I could help save you somewhere else.”

Bucky gripped Steve’s shoulder for a moment. He would never be able to make Steve forgive himself, but he would always try. “You saved me here. Not in the way you probably wanted to, but… You saved me.”

Shrugging, Steve settles again next to him. The wind is softly blowing around them, and Bucky can hear Sam paying with the shield in the back.

Talking about the past had always been hard for them, and after all they’ve been through in the past few days, years, Bucky doesn’t want to dwell on that. They’re both here now. A little broken, very tire, but they’re there.

Bucky tries. He can do jokes now. “So, you changed the timeline. Banner told you not to do that.”

Steve’s lips quirked just a bit as he barely bumped their shoulders together “When has anyone ever gotten through my thick head?” he admitted. Bucky knew the answer to that, and that’s why he was so surprised to see him return “I know I told you about staying with Peggy, but I couldn’t. Red Skull’s words were still in my mind.” he shrugged “I couldn’t change _my_ past. But I figured I could give that Steve the future he deserved.”

Softly nodding, Bucky couldn’t help but feel the pressure of Steve’s words. Once again, Steve chose him when he could get his own life back. He had the chance to, Bucky’s blessing as well, as much as it hurt him, and Steve still chose to come back to Bucky. “I can’t promise you this future will be much better than what you might have experienced there.”

“I know, but it’s my future. I have you.” Steve gave him the smile that was usually reserved to him. It was small, but it make the wrinkles in the corner of his eyes more pronounced, made him look younger. It didn’t erase the pain in his eyes, but for a moment it always made Bucky forget his own. “I have Sam, the Avengers. This is my home, and it’s what Nat and Tony would have wanted.” he shrugged, the little smile still on his lips. “Guess I’m going back to Operations, lead behind the scenes. Ready to have my annoying voice in your ear all the time? ”

That got an hearty laugh out of Bucky “I’ve been listening to you since the 20’s, I think I can handle it.” Bucky rested his hand on Steve’s thigh and squeezed softly, smiling up at him. Bucky really didn’t care what the future got in store for him, as long as Steve was right there by his side.

Bucky looked back to the lake, the moment reminding him of countless days Steve visited him in Wakanda and sat in comfortable silence. It feels like it was just days ago for Bucky, and it was, but it had been years for Steve, but nothing changed. Bucky was proved once again that no matter what life threw their way, they always managed to find each other and click back together.

Bucky broke the silence after what felt like hours, hand still on Steve’s knee.“They’re proud of you. I know they are.”

“Yeah…” Steve nodded, leaning slightly into the touch, enjoying the moment and letting them fall silent again. There would be time to talk and process everything that happened later.

There’s a loud bang as vibranium hits vibranium, and Bucky, startled, quickly climbs onto his feet, eyes searching wildly, trying to figure out where _that_ came from. He finds Sam grinning, shield on his hands. His own arm calibrates around the bicep.

“I got the hang of it. Great boomerang.” he motions to the shield in his arm. Bucky is already regretting the suggestion of giving Sam the shield and the field leadership.

“Good thing you came back.” Bucky grunts between his teeth, shoulders relaxing, but not standing down. This is what his life was going to be. He couldn’t wait. “I’m gonna need you to stop me from killing this pigeon right now.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I know we can't change canon, but we can certainly ignore it and give Steve the worthy end he deserved. This is my take. Steve deserved better. Hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
